Olympic Lifts

[spiral]

I've been considering replacing SOHP with push press. Can you provide some insight on why push press would be a better option?

+1 on this.

I suppose push press become a better option only once you stall on SOHP.

 

[$ick Money!]

Sorry to go off topic, but speaking of PP and stalling on OHP, I have been doing 1 push press before my OHP sets to get into the groove. I have hit a couple of PR's doing so.

Does anyone else use this method to get that eccentric contraction before your first rep?

 

[glennpendlay]

I've been considering replacing SOHP with push press. Can you provide some insight on why push press would be a better option?

I am sure I could sit here and come come up with some reasonable explanation based on science or anatomy... but it would be a lie. The truth of how I arrived at this particular opinion is simply this... Over 20 years based on my experience as an athlete and a coach, I have come to believe that a person who gets strong on the push press has a good bench, incline, military, DB bench, etc, with little or no practice. This is not true, or as true, for any other "pushing" upper body exercise.

 

[Ken Full]

strongly agreed. high pulls r also fantastic. ive pounded weights in traditional fashion for yrs, now the olympic type lifts actually make up a larger portion of my workout than the regular lifts.

 

[ExtremeStandard]

In my experience the Oly lifts and and Big 3 will have transference, especially with beginners. I am not positive that the OP is a beginner, but I have a feeling he/she is.

Pretty cool that Glenn Pendlay is posting here.

I'm not a beginner ,but no means am I an expert I'm also not clueless I know my stuff on parts of the weightlifting subject.

 

[maori rule all]

I am sure I could sit here and come come up with some reasonable explanation based on science or anatomy... but it would be a lie. The truth of how I arrived at this particular opinion is simply this... Over 20 years based on my experience as an athlete and a coach, I have come to believe that a person who gets strong on the push press has a good bench, incline, military, DB bench, etc, with little or no practice. This is not true, or as true, for any other "pushing" upper body exercise.

Could this carryover from the push press be due to leg drive which we all know is so important for the bench and other lifts? In the case of a SOHP the leg drive is lacking thus not working this aspect of other lefts which leg drive is required to produce greater forces.

 

[glennpendlay]

Actually I think it is because the leg drive to start allow a much bigger weight to be used, and this weight is an "overload" at the top when the triceps and shoulders are doing most of the work.

But who knows. Only thing I am sure of is that big push press numbers mean a very strong man overall.

 

[Dafreeclinic]

Actually I think it is because the leg drive to start allow a much bigger weight to be used, and this weight is an "overload" at the top when the triceps and shoulders are doing most of the work.

But who knows. Only thing I am sure of is that big push press numbers mean a very strong man overall.

So if you were to take two individuals, and say one has a better SOHP and the other has a better push press. The one with the better push press is more likely to have a stronger athletic carry over. The reason I ask this is the situation where correlation =/= causation comes to mind. Plus since anyone who has a big any lift suggest a strong man.

Slightly off topic maybe a squat, clean, push press competition might make a nice competition after this one ends.

 

[maori rule all]

Actually I think it is because the leg drive to start allow a much bigger weight to be used, and this weight is an "overload" at the top when the triceps and shoulders are doing most of the work.

But who knows. Only thing I am sure of is that big push press numbers mean a very strong man overall.

ahhh I understand, good analysis, I went for the obvious lol.

By the way, awsome to have you posting all of us can learn from you.

 

[miaou]

Sorry to go off topic, but speaking of PP and stalling on OHP, I have been doing 1 push press before my OHP sets to get into the groove. I have hit a couple of PR's doing so.

Does anyone else use this method to get that eccentric contraction before your first rep?

So you are doing 1 rep of PP before your SOHP sets. It that rep with higher weight than the SOHP sets? Also how many reps on the SOHP sets?

 

[turbozed]

Slightly off topic maybe a squat, clean, push press competition might make a nice competition after this one ends.

This is a good idea actually.

Unfortunately, when these competitions come to a vote, almost everyone votes for some Big 3 variant since they don't really want to change up their whole routine.

 

[glennpendlay]

Sorry to go off topic, but speaking of PP and stalling on OHP, I have been doing 1 push press before my OHP sets to get into the groove. I have hit a couple of PR's doing so.

Does anyone else use this method to get that eccentric contraction before your first rep?

Another strategy that works pretty well is to use a weight that you can military press 3 or 4 times, and do three reps on the miltary press with it, then push press it for 2-3 reps. This will usually take a little fine tuning of the reps to work best for you, because different people have different ratios between their best military and their best push press.

This is a pretty difficult way of doing things, and probably shouldnt be done more than once a week.

 

[$ick Money!]

So you are doing 1 rep of PP before your SOHP sets. It that rep with higher weight than the SOHP sets? Also how many reps on the SOHP sets?

I use the same weight. I am using the PP to get started. Do you ever find your 1st SOHP rep to be the hardest? This is because there is no eccentric contraction. I do the PP to get the bar up so that my first SOHP rep has an eccentric contraction beforehand.

@GlennPendlay: Thanks. The same article that I read about doing a PP before my strict press said to do PP afterwards as well. I can't remember who wrote it but they said to be sure to call all of Jim Wendlers strict press PR's a Push Press. Apparently he loves it when you do that.

 

[$ick Money!]

Here is the article. I have been using the method of 1 PP before every set of strict press and it has helped with a couple of PR's. Every once and a while I will do a set of strict press with out the PP first and that first rep feels so hard.

A Beginner’s Guide to Overhead Pressing

 

[spiral]

Great, now I really want to add push press to my routine. How could I add them to 5/3/1? I don't want to replace SOHP with it, but I somehow doubt it would be a very good accessory lift...

 

[turbozed]

I use the same weight. I am using the PP to get started. Do you ever find your 1st SOHP rep to be the hardest? This is because there is no eccentric contraction. I do the PP to get the bar up so that my first SOHP rep has an eccentric contraction beforehand.

You can move a lot more weight if you use the overhead locked position as a starting point of the press instead of the racked position. Imagine having to start the bench press at the chest with the barbell at dead stop instead of starting it with it locked out for a comparison.

Rip-a-toe advocates starting the OHP at the bottom position, however. Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I agree with the idea that an overhead press starts from the bottom and is pressed overhead. Perhaps I'm somewhat partial to the old timer Olympic lifters who cleaned or continental-cleaned the weight up to the rack position before pressing. I've never seen a lifting competition where the weight was unracked at locked out overhead position.

 

[miaou]

I use the same weight. I am using the PP to get started. Do you ever find your 1st SOHP rep to be the hardest? This is because there is no eccentric contraction. I do the PP to get the bar up so that my first SOHP rep has an eccentric contraction beforehand.

Thanks for the article. What he does is push-press the weight up before the first rep of a set, so the first rep takes advantage of the stretch-shortening cycle (which would otherwise be absent from the first rep). I can see how that could help lift more weight, but I'm not sure if it would transfer to an increased 1RM. If anything that means you don't train from dead start at all (a SOHP PR attempt begins from dead start and doesn't incorporate the element of the SSC).

 

[VoodooPlata]

Actually I think it is because the leg drive to start allow a much bigger weight to be used, and this weight is an "overload" at the top when the triceps and shoulders are doing most of the work.

But who knows. Only thing I am sure of is that big push press numbers mean a very strong man overall.

I offer this as a hypothesis, with all due humility:
Using push press allows one to use a greater weight, which then has to be brought down in a controlled fashion thus placing greater emphasis on the eccentric phase of the movement, right?

This, in turn, would somewhat emulate doing negatives, which are a well-known method for increasing raw strength. The difference being that during a negative you would only do the eccentric phase of the movement, whilst in push press the eccentric phase is only accentuated. If you don't just drop the weight back onto your chest. Then i don't know.

 

[glennpendlay]

I offer this as a hypothesis, with all due humility:
Using push press allows one to use a greater weight, which then has to be brought down in a controlled fashion thus placing greater emphasis on the eccentric phase of the movement, right?

This, in turn, would somewhat emulate doing negatives, which are a well-known method for increasing raw strength. The difference being that during a negative you would only do the eccentric phase of the movement, whilst in push press the eccentric phase is only accentuated. If you don't just drop the weight back onto your chest. Then i don't know.

I am sure that the greater eccentric load when lowering the weight has something to do with it. I am also sure that the very fact that you have to keep your shoulders in position under the weight when its lying across the delts is also worth something... as well as locking out bigger weight. I mean in general, you are just handling a heavier weight, it all adds up.

 

[Searcher]

How should the push press be performed? I am thinking of only two ways, one in which the legs are used, to get the bar off the bottom, but then strict press from the forehead up, and the other in which you use a shit ton of leg drive to get past a sticking point, and almost don't strict press anything but the last couple of inches.

The shit ton of leg drive requires lots of knee bending and ankle flexibility since you kind of have to remain upright, which led me to question it, but the other way with less leg drive didn't do shit to help me, and I was push pressing numbers than were barely higher than my strict press.